What are the three states of matter, and how do they change state?

• A. Gas, plasma, liquid; heat can only vaporize.
• B. Plasma, Bose-Einstein; not typical for 5th grade.
• C. Solid, liquid, and gas; adding or removing heat can melt, freeze, vaporize, or condense.
• D. Solid, liquid only.

Answer: (C)

In this topic, matter has three common states: solid, liquid, and gas. The idea to grasp is how heat moves matter from one state to another. A solid stays in a fixed shape because its particles are tightly packed. When you add heat, it gains enough energy to break some of those tight attractions, and it melts into a liquid that can flow. If you keep adding heat, the liquid absorbs more energy and vaporizes into a gas, where the particles move far apart. If you remove heat, a gas can condense back into a liquid, and further cooling turning that liquid into a solid is freezing.

Other options bring in states like plasma or even omit a state, which aren’t the standard ideas taught for this level, so they don’t fit the typical three-state picture or the common changes you can observe with heat.

So the best answer is the one that names solid, liquid, and gas and explains that adding or removing heat can melt, freeze, vaporize, or condense.